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Page 440
a blindfold ox milling corn. Tell me the tale. If I see only the same things you do, then you have wasted an hour's time. No more harm can come than that and, after all, we have naught better to do. We must wait until my little one decides he wishes to look upon the world."
It did not take long for Alinor to give Isobel a more complete version of Ian's proposal than she had written, to describe his reluctance to return to the keep before they were married, and the events at the tourney. Isobel shook her head over Alinor's interpretation of the events, but she did not contest it. She wanted the meat of the present matter.
"So he might have some foolish, half-formed dream left over from childhood. Well, what of it? Simon loved the queen just so, and it did not trouble you."
"How did you know that?" Alinor asked in amazement.
"It was written in his eyes for all to see."
"Perhaps." Alinor shrugged. "But when he needed to choose, he chose me and not the dream."
"Well, if you are not the greatest ninny! Who do you think Ian would choose, if it came to the point?" Isobel was well-satisfied with the faint flush she saw rise in Alinor's cheeks. Obviously, the very unoriginal idea she had stated had not occurred to her friend or had been deliberately overlooked. "What I want to know is not what Ian dreams but what has passed between you since you conceived this notion."
Alinor shuddered. "I tried to hide what I felt. I swear I did. But he sensed it. He knew that I knew. He tried every wayexcept renouncing the dreamto ease me and please me. Then he grew angry, which I did not blame him for in the least, and we parted. I went on progress to the keeps I had not visited since Simon's illness, and he went to look over Adam's lands and to examine carefully those three strongholds which he meant to wrest from the rebellious castellans."

 
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